The Ritz-Carlton Bacara, Santa Barbara

The Ritz Carlton Bacara is a great place to stay if you are going to be in the Santa Barbara area. The resort is just beautiful. The location is amazing. The rooms are nice. But what makes the resort so wonderful is the people. My wife and I wanted to have a quaint getaway. Somewhere private, quiet and relaxing. We have stayed at this resort in the past and had a very nice time. This time our experience was made even more special by the attentive staff team at the resort. While they were all very nice - from valet to housekeeping, the concierge and the restaurant staff, there was one person who was a standout for us. Mr. Benjamin Kessler. Mr. Kessler is the Room Operations Manager. He was fantastic. He was personable, friendly, courteous, professional and just a pleasure to chat with. I spoke with him a few times during our stay. He would always remember my name and consistently asked if there was anything he could do to make our stay even better. Each time I spoke with Mr. Kessler I walked away understanding that he genuinely cared about our experience at the resort. If you are in the area and looking for a wonderful getaway, this is the place. Leonard

The experience at this property was very welcoming which was nice. I've stayed at other Ritz-Carlton properties and it's not always like that. I appreciated Lina from front desk who assisted with my check-in. As a Titanium elite member she went directly to see if there was an available upgrade for me. At some properties most front desk staff don't bother unless I ask so I was very appreciative that Lina took the time to find a nice room for my husband and I. Unfortunately, I rated this property a 4 out of 5 due to the experience we faced with housekeeping. We were unsure what was happening but it seemed like dishes were being thrown around and the sound was going through the walls which didn't really give us the best rest we hoped for. At the same time, I had 4pm check-out and when we arrived back to our room before 4, housekeeping was already inside and cleaning even though our belongings were still in the room. It was a very unfortunate experience but I also appreciated Sebatian from the concierge who took the time to help with some of our request and who also thought of a way to help mend the inconvenience we faced with housekeeping. There's truly nothing wrong with this property, I would definitely come back and recommend this place to family and friends. It's just unfortunate we had a couple of incidents with housekeeping during this stay.

I have stayed in many Ritz Carlton locations worldwide, and I have never been so disappointed with the service as the one I received at this Ritz Carlton in Santa Barbara. First, I'm a titanium member with Marriott, and I usually receive at least an appreciation note from a hotel manager (or even some tiny treats) when I stay at the Ritz. This is the first Ritz Carlton that they didn't even care about. Secondly, they should hire better receptionists. We don't care about good-looking people who cannot speak good English. As much as I tried, I could barely understand the receptionist's English to the point that I even gave up listening to her and instead communicated through messaging. The receptionist on the following day is great, but I expect consistency from establishments like the Ritz. Thirdly, I called them a few days beforehand to request a rollaway bed (which was not free) in my room and even received an update/confirmation. Before coming to the hotel, I even messaged the team through the Marriott Bonvoy app to confirm that it would be ready for us since we had a long drive that day and only arrived very late in the evening. To my surprise, as much as they confirmed with me both through phone and messaging, we arrived in our room without the bed. When I called the receptionist desk, the person who picked up the phone blatantly told me that I didn't request it :)). I literally had to come down to the reception to demand they read the message and show them the confirmation email. This was the last thing that we would want to do after literally an 9-hour drive. Fourthly, while the bed was comfortable, the sink at the bathroom was faulty right when we used it for the first time to wash our hands (we couldn't turn the water off). It's either we were very unlucky, or the Ritz at Santa Barbara literally doesn't care. Overall, if I could choose again, I would rather choose Courtyard at Santa Barbara - they probably gave me the same treatment with a much better appreciation towards titanium members.

Fabulous four days at Bacara. So nice to be there in the off season. The hotel/grounds themselves are beautiful and every staff member we interacted with genuinely wanted to do everything they could to give us the best experience possible. Speaking of which, there are several staff we especially wanted to thank because of the truly top-level caring they extended to us. There was some miscommunication between Marriott central reservations and the resort and Pat (the Rooms Controller at Bacara) went absolutely above and beyond to resolve all of it quickly and make things a stress-free pleasure for us (and then on a day when Pat was out of the office, Bonny seamlessly picked things up and took care of us wonderfully too when we decided to extend our stay). We sincerely appreciate both of them and all their true thoughtfulness. Also, our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Maria Sanchez, who was the housekeeper for us during the duration of our stay. Not only did she do the most detailed and outstanding job in bringing our room to a magnificent standard, but she also was just so incredibly warm, kind, thoughtful and caring, wanting to do anything she could to help make our stay better and more comfortable. The three of them made us feel some of the most taken-care-of we've ever experienced in our 25 years of global travel. Food/Drink at the resort overall was really impressive. Some memorable dishes include the truffle fries from Room Service (perhaps an odd dish to comment on, but these somehow arrived still so shatteringly crisp and hot that they certainly warrant mentioning) and the pizzas (also, not something we'd normally order at a resort, but clearly there is a passion for high-end pizza here so we ordered several of them, and they were outstanding- even the gluten-free crust options were really good). Also, we should mention that the resort took tremendous care any time a gluten allergy was mentioned. Cocktails were all top-notch. On a small note, somethings we would have loved to have seen more of on the menus were local/regional specialties like the steamers, oysters and crab that Central Cali is known for, and Santa Maria BBQ. The Spa was also outstanding. A beautiful space, and all of our treatment experiences were super. Thank you so much to everyone at the Resort for making our stay so memorable, with sincere appreciation to Pat, Bonny and Maria. We're really looking forward to our next visit.

Stayed here on weekend and had great stay. We were pleasantly surprised to have been upgraded to nice room/suite with partial ocean view (we are Ambassador status). We also used the concierge Dorothy Shaner was wonderful! She gave us so many great recommendations for wine tasting. She was pleasant charming and witty! We took her wonderful recommendations to heart and visited two wineries she recommended Sanford and Pence. Nhi Le, concierge, was also was helpful for dinner recommendations etc. Overall we had a great stay and would come back!